


Listening To You (Re-Written)

by heyheyheywhatcanid0



Category: The Who (Band), Tommy (1975), Tommy - The Who (Album)
Genre: 1960s, 1960s Music, Angst, Canon Autistic Character, Comfort No Hurt, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28920339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyheyheywhatcanid0/pseuds/heyheyheywhatcanid0
Summary: After Tommy's Holiday Camp burns down, our hero must start his life again, and try to show the media that he is not deserving of explotation and abuse.Set in the late sixties, possibly following the movie timeline.
Relationships: Tommy Walker (Tommy - The Who)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	1. See Me

Late 1968.  
"From you, I get the story…"  
The horrid camp had burned down after his disciples turned against him and tore it apart, with his mother and his step father in the making, making him feel scared and unsafe.

He had other family members, like his brutal cousin and his perverted uncle. He wasn’t going to visit them or move with them due to the traumatic episodes he had to face with the men involved. 

He, as he descended from the mountain he escalated to reach the forest, decided he’d try to find somewhere to stay warm and safe. Having some company would be nice too but he wanted to be safe. He knew that rockstars were looked like if they were gods, when they really weren’t. They were normal people with interesting and frustrating jobs. 

When the boy reached the forest, he tried to look for somewhere to stay. He could make a shelter, but most branches he found along the stroll were short and easy to break. He thought of looking for caves, but needed to be wary of bears, wolves, bats and snakes that lived there. He needed to find food too but he didn’t know the difference between a poisonous berry and an edible one.

As he walked across the forest with his bare feet and shirtless, he started to feel cold as he crossed his arms and shivered.

He then noticed on his left a series of colorful lights and music coming from afar, so he decided to turn left when he approached a small city, as he peeked from behind a tall tree.  
“Why does this forest have an entrance to this city?” he thought as he scanned the place.

He saw two girls, probably as old as him, giggling at the exhibition of a shop. By the shop’s side, there was an alley, he could hide there and try to stay for the night.  
He lost everything he had on the fire, from his money to his clothes, from his comfort stuff from his furniture, everything. So he had to start from scratch, and it was going to be frustrating if he was going to do it all on his own. 

The girls left from glancing at the exhibition, so he ran as fast as he could to the alley, and leaned on the brick wall. 

He breathed heavily as he tried to calm down. He looked around, to see if there was something he could do. He found an abandoned box, almost at the end of the alley, that had old clothes, from coats to blouses, so he grabbed a furred coat that was a bit too big on him, and put it on. 

He sat on the concrete floor, getting too comfortable with the warmth and comfort the beige and cream colored coat was giving him, and closed his eyes without noticing, as he also didn’t notice the door in front of him. 

The door got opened by a girl, in her working clothes, who was taking out the trash. When she closed the now filled trash can, she turned her head to look at the sleeping boy.  
“Is that Tommy?” she thought to herself, then she shook it. “No way Jules. Unless…”  
She got on her knees to have a closer look at the sleeping boy. He looked the same as the musician they were showing on tv a couple of days ago. It could be him.  
She couldn’t leave him to die from hypothermia, even if he had a coat on. So she went inside the building, and continued with her shift. 

Jules shift ended at around nine o’ clock in the evening, and got outside of the building by the same door she got outside to take out the trash earlier. 

She sat cross-legged in front of him and softly brushed his shoulders, trying to wake him up. The boy groaned in response as he slowly opened his eyes and flinched by the look of the stranger staring at him with worry.

“Who are you?!” he asked. She held his hand.

“ ‘M Jules. Julie, Juliet, but I’m Jules. I saw you sleeping when I took the trash and was worried that you might catch something bad. Like a cold.” she explained to him as she let his hand to fall softly on the floor.

The boy looked down and glanced at her again. She had red, medium length straight hair that curled at the ends, and looked like one of those Hollywood actresses from the fifties, she looked like the Funny Face one, he thought, he remembers his mother watching it on the television days before the traumatic experience where he saw his mother’s couple die in front of his eyes.

She had brown eyes, freckles across her face and was thin, but was curvy at her waist from down. She still had her black and white waitress outfit on.

“ ‘M Tommy, Walker. Y’know, the pinball wizard? Well ex since… nevermind.” he frowned and looked down again. “I slept here because I have nowhere to go now. I can’t trust anyone and have nothing. I’m afraid someone might spot me and I could end up in real danger!” he explained to her, as tears started to accumulate in his eyes. She pulled him for a hug.

“It’s okay. I get you. Would you like to stay at my place tonight? I will keep you safe and warm, don’t worry.” she offered to him as he looked at her thoughtfully.

Then they heard stomping and snaps and yelling. “Oh my god it’s Tommy!” they heard from afar as he stood up and grabbed her hand, running away from the photographers and interviewers. 

“Oh god, let's try to find my car. I parked it around here!” She told him as she looked at him who was breathing heavily. 

They realized it was an alley with an end, so they decided to go as fast as they could through the press and try to find her car.

“What model is it?” he asked, almost screaming. As they were almost free from the batch of people trying to exploit him, he found a black Aston Martin parked in front of a restaurant. 

“That’s my car! Actually it’s my dad’s but he gave it to me!” she told him as she opened the doors from the passenger’s seat for the boy and let him in as he buckled himself once he got into the vehicle, then she got inside too, closing the door behind her, joining him for a minute as she got through the two drivers seat and sat in the main one, and started the car.

He let out a sigh as he looked behind him, leaving the interviewers from behind, and then looked at Juliet who was concentrated at the road.

“Thank you so much Jules,” he sighed, “I can’t thank you enough.”

She giggled. “You’re welcome. When we get home we could talk a bit or have something to eat, well if you’d like, of course.” He nodded. “Yeah… Thanks.”

He thought he was going to start a new life, trying to be as far from the people who exploit him as possible.

////

Water cooled her skin down as her tense muscles relaxed, and tried to stand up harshly, as she groaned in pain. She opened her eyes to see the dead body of her husband. She wailed, and then cried. She ended up losing him.

She looked around the shambled camp. Bricks were broken, tubes were out of place and leaking water, there was fire that was dying down due to firefighters acting against them.

The fire. Her skin. Her goddess beauty. 

She fainted in horror, only having to look at how deformed her husbands face got by the fire.

She woke up in a white room, with several people interrogating her and asking her several questions.  
"Miss Walker," a blonde lady started, "You survived the fire, and unlike other cases of burns, yours were minor and luckily we didn't have to perform any type of operations on you."

"Where is he?!" she asked almost screaming hysterically. A man replied to her with worry. "Who?"

"My darn son! Where is he?!" she asked as tears started to accumulate from her eyes.  
Unaware of what happened with the boy, he answered to her question. "We don't have any information on that miss- well, I won't lie to you but sources have recently spotted a blonde, curly haired boy, running away from the press with a red haired girl, and got inside an Aston Martin."

The woman groaned as she looked at him. "The blonde boy's my son. I need him. NOW!"


	2. Feel Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace at last?

He woke up with the sunlight coming from the window. And alone in Juliet’s bedroom. He sat down in bed, rubbing his eyes, blindly staring at the room.

He liked the pajamas she had given him yesterday, and the yellow striped white socks too.  
He got out of bed as he stared at his reflection in Julie’s mirror.  
He had such a special connection with them, for good and bad reasons. Good because he found his inner self, bad because his mother threw him to the mirror, making him fall into the water of the pool they had in the mansion his mother bought.

He then turned to have a closer look at the bed. He liked seeing the details in everything, but not in a bad way, it satisfied him. He noticed the different patterns the dark orange colored quilt had. He picked a piece of it with his hand and brushed it. He liked the texture of one of the patches. 

“Tommy!” he heard Jules calling his name downstairs. “Come here!” he rushed to go downstairs when he noticed the time, glancing at the wall clock.

“It's late!” he told her. He had overslept. She walked over to him as she brushed his shoulder in reassurance. “It’s okay if you slept more. You deserve more hours of sleep sometimes.” she reassured him as he smiled at her, looking at the girl.   
“Look,” she started as she grabbed her bag and keys. “I have researched autism with my cousin, who’s a psychologist like I told you…”

“Yes, I remember…” he answered to her, paying attention to what she was saying.   
“And we talked about you being autistic yesterday…” she continued, receiving a nod from Tommy. “Can I ask you again what your comfort items are? I forgot.” 

He nodded. “Well plush toys, quilts, wooden horses? No, not wooden horses um… Anything that has texture but mostly soft fabrics and toys, yeah.” he answered her question.

She grabbed her wallet from a tiny table across the room and put it inside her bag. “Okay I will leave for some minutes to get you that, ok?”

He started to get paranoid with the idea of Juliet leaving. What if something broke and he didn’t know how to fix it? What if something horrible happened?   
“Can’t you go later?” he asked her, crossing his arms. “I-I’m sorry I’m jus’ worried ‘bout what would happen and- oh god, why I act like this?” he started to get nervous while speaking, and hid his face in his hands. 

She left everything in a corner of the sofa and pulled him into a hug. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry I forgot you get easily worried. I will stay, and I remembered I have some quilts and soft toys for you so yeah I won’t spend anything right now, sorry Tommy.” 

He broke the hug and looked at her in shock. “I thought you didn’t have any stuffed animals.”   
“I was cleaning a bit yesterday while you were sleeping and I found some. I also have old clothes I won’t use anymore so you can have them.” she explained to him. 

He smiled at her. “Thanks, honestly I never knew I would have stuff this easy… I wanted to make a fucking shelter out of small sticks in the forest… And I’m not joking!” he told her as he went to Julie’s room with her.   
“I thought you were someone else until I looked at your sleeping face,” she added as she got inside the room and pulled some big, carton boxes out of her closet. “Then I realized it was you. And I knew from my cousin’s research that you wanted to be somewhere safer and more private so…”

She sat on the floor, cross legged, as she opened the boxes.   
One with old, but charming stuffed toys, and the other one with groovy clothes with floral patterns and pretty colors.  
Tommy sat by her side as he peeked over the boxes. He spotted a pretty, yellow, swinging sixties floral shirt and picked it. “Can I have it?” he asked Jules as he pulled it close to his chest. She nodded as he went on one corner of her room to try it up. 

He started to take the nightshirt off as he grabbed the yellow one he had found and put it on.   
He glanced at his reflection and giggled. It fitted quite nicely on him.   
“You like it?” she asked as he looked at the reflection of the happy boy. He nodded in response. “It fits perfectly.”

He then thought about a haircut, not an extreme one, but he knew it was summer and he didn’t want to be sweating all day long with his voluminous batch of curls.  
“Could you cut my hair?” he asked the girl who was looking at the clothes. “I will tell you how though, it’s not too much you have to do.”

Meanwhile, Tommy’s mom was desperately trying to find him with one of the photographers who took a photo of her son and the girl with the black car. 

Was she going to join him with restarting his life? No. She wanted him to sing and to exploit him to the point of exhaustion, ignoring his needs and rights. She only wanted riches and gold, not whines and cries.

“Let me see the plate. Now.” the woman ordered the photographer as he nervously lended her the revealed photo.   
The patent was quite easy to memorize. “Great. I will get the tiny little scum and-”  
“And?” the taller man asked, glancing at the older woman. “He has went through-”

She stopped midway on the street and grabbed the neck of the man’s shirt. “I had to seize my husband disappearing on the war, then the murder of my lover, then my husband dying on the camp fire and you think the poor little idiot went through hell?!” she roared as she made a frown. “You don’t know me, Stephenson.” 

They continued to search for the plate, when they found an Aston Martin that matched the one in the picture, parked in front of a pretty house on their right.   
“Wait here. I have to arrange something.” she ordered the man as she walked over to the door and rang the bell of Juliet’s house.

The young couple were still in the waitress’s room, when the red haired girl heard the bell ringing.   
“Wait here,” she told the boy as he nodded at her with a smile, brushing away the strands of hair from his shoulders with a smile. “I’ll go downstairs and be right here in a minute.”

The girl went out of the bathroom and headed downstairs, while Tommy softly brushed his new, shoulder length haircut with his fingers, running them through his curls. 

“I like it.” he spoke to himself as he waited for the girl. 

The girl, now in the hall, grabbed her keys and started to unlock the door. “Who's this?” she asked. 

“Don’t act a fool. Bring the boy to me. Now, he’s mine.” Mrs Walker replied from the other side of the door. 

Jules furrowed her brows in concern. “Who are you?” 

The woman kicked the door open, hit Jules on her jaw, leaving her on the floor, groaning, and went upstairs, looking for his son. 

“Jules?” Tommy asked, unsure whether to check on her or stay in the chair. Then, through the mirror’s reflection, he saw his mother leaning on the door frame, making him gasp in shock, standing up from the chair and looking at his mother. 

“How?!” he asked in confusion, his voice getting thinner. She walked to him and grabbed him tightly by his wrist. “Let’s go back home, Tommy. Don’t you ever do that again.” she told him with gritted teeth. 

“No! I want to stay! I finally feel safe somewhere and you have to ruin all of my dreams!” he complained as the older woman started to pull from his hair.   
“Bullshit! I’ll sign you to a record label and you better get back to singing you little fucker.” she growled as she got out of the room with Tommy, who was trying to escape her embrace. “All of this happened because of you!”

“Help! Jules please help me!” he begged for help, as tears started to fill his eyes. 

The waitress sloppily got up as she heard the cries of help, and crawled upstairs to help her friend.   
She found Tommy’s mom, torturing him with his hair on the corner of the hall, and ran to her, punching her.  
Tommy escaped from Mrs. Walker as he got behind Jules. “Thanks.” he squeaked, looking at how his mom tried to get up. 

“Thomas Walker,” the lady breathed out, “You will never be free from me. I’ll never let you do whatever the fuck you want, even less now. You will never be free, Thomas. Never. You’ll remain like a freak, you’ll be perfect for a fucking circus! You will go away with me, stay with me until we find a label, you sing your stupid little songs and you’ll never see this bitch again. You’ll never get your freedom back, it’s your fault you became deaf, dumb and blind.”

She got up and tried to hurt Tommy, when he stopped her, tightly grabbing her wrist. “I’ve had enough of you! You only exploited me. I was your goose with golden eggs! Why would you even have an autistic son if you’re going to hurt him?” he yelled at her in anger. “Go! I am an adult. I lost my innocence and childhood because of you and dad! I am not a baby. Go.” 

Miss Walker was shocked. Her son couldn’t be saying this to her, the woman that gave birth to him. She got intimidated by her own child, and left, closing the main door from behind and leaving the couple alone, but not forever.

“Oh my god,” Juliet broke in tears as she looked at an upset Tommy. “I am so sorry Tommy. I-”   
He pulled his friend for a hug, as he brushed her hair. “Jules I promise you, it’s not your fault she knocked you down. I’m okay. I realized the consequences of her acts once the camp burned down in ashes. I’m staying with you. You’re the only person who ever cared about me. Well the only one I met for now.” 

Jules returned the hug as she sniffed. "Oh you really are the sweetest... Listen do you want to go out for dinner? I don't work on saturdays." she offered to him as she softly broke the hug. He nodded in response as they both went to their room to change themselves and leave.


End file.
